Budget Review and Recommendations

The department of Developmental Education is tasked each year with coming up with the following years budget and this year I was given that task. The Dean has given us a very hard task and that is that we have to cut 10% of our budget for next year. My task is to come up with five strategies that help in reducing our budget by 10% just for the following year, two of them will have to present a permanent change to our current budget and the ones to follow. This was a very tough decision, as many items have to be considered. I have given it a lot of thought and this is what I came up with, I will also explain which one of the strategies I think works best for our department and the institution.

Strategy 1

This strategy will focus on minimal changes by simply by moving the number of sections and students around. I chose to reduce the amount of sections in Math 002 from the Adjunct faculty by reducing the section to five sections for fall and spring Term. This will reduce the adjunct salaries from 27,000 to 18,000. Math 001 from the adjunct faculty will also be reduced from ten to eight sections in the fall and from ten to seven in spring. This will reduce the budget for this section from $18,000 to $14,400 in the fall and from $18,000 to $12,600 in the spring. Students and sections have been fairly distributed between the two full time faculties. The entire budget was reduced by a little over 10% from the original budget of $265,000 to $238,000, this leaves an additional $500 dollars that can be used or put back into other areas of the budget.

I feel this is the area the has the least change and minimal impact will be done to the institution. Even with this minimal change, it still increases the amount of sections/...

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...we can create a program that will allow for the creation of computer labs and ask students for a fee (that will help in the maintenance and up keep of equipment). We can also use this strategy to help in implementing permanent changes and create programs that will help alleviate additional responsibilities given to the faculty while helping students succeed in their classes. This has been a great project, I have learned a lot from this experience, and I now have a better understanding of the budget process. I hope my suggested strategies offers options and ideas to implement new changes to our department.

Works Cited

Accounting Coach. (2013). Payroll accounting. Retrieved from http://www.accountingcoach.com/payroll-accounting/explanation/4

Barr, M., & McClellan, G. (2011). Budgets and financial management in higher education. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.